Laura Lee Zanger has been weaving since 1986 when a friend taught her to make a melon
basket. Her husband, Steve, bought Laura Lee her first basketry supplies, including Lyn
Siler's How To Make Baskets Books. Now, one of Laura Lee's baskets is featured in Lyn's
book, A Basketmaker's Odyssey, Over Under Around and Through.
Laura Lee is a member and the founder of the River Country Basket Guild in Augusta,
Georgia.
Laura Lee started weaving Cherokee-style Twills in 2000 and at that time began designing
and writing patterns. She shares her excitement and enthusiasm for weaving with everyone
she encounters, maintaining the fascination of a child with every new idea, lesson and
experience. It is her goal to make twill fever an epidemic among basket weavers as she travels
around the USA teaching at basketry conventions and guilds. She enjoys expressing her
creativity in 1-3-5 twill designs. Her new passion is the doublewoven technique.
Laura Lee has designed over 100 baskets with written patterns, and she has authored a series
of books called Laura Lee's Little Bitty Basket Books on several different weaving techniques.
Most of these books contain comical basketry poetry. She has also written Old Woman And
The Legend of the Doublewoven Basket and made the accompanying Doubleweave, A How-To
DVD, and The Luck of the Draw, Fun Activity for Small Weaving Groups or Basket Guilds.
Her latest literary work is the novel Spirit Voice.Spirit Voice is a fictional story of Native American life from the mountains of North Carolina
to the coast of South Carolina in the Pre-colonial period. It is told by an old Cherokee basket
weaver as she recalls her past, beginning with her abduction by a group of strangers when she
is four years old.
As the Girl of Four Summers she develops a lifelong relationship with her Spirit Voice who
guides her through life, the good and the bad. She learns about her world as she travels from
the mountains to the ocean along the Great River of the Uchee, Sawanugi and Savannah
Peoples, living for a while with the Cusabo People of the coast. A family secret is revealed to
her when she is a young woman triggering events that change her life forever.
This story is full of family and tribal dynamics as it is woven around historical facts. It is a
journey through time for the reader to follow the long life of this old woman as she experiences
hardship, joy, love, and learning.